Maksimovics report was
completely different. However, none of the world leaders
paid it any heed. She said that a massacre of civilians
in Racak was out of the question. At first, she was not
even allowed to survey the scene.

Following Walkers
scenario, the dead terrorists were not buried the same
day (as Moslem custom calls for) but were dressed in
civilian clothing and set on display in the nearby
mosque, in order to send the images of massacred
civilians to the world.

Still,
because of the obvious discrepancies between reports on
what happened in Racak, a neutral group of
Finnish forensic experts was formed to conduct autopsies
on the bodies and establish if they were civilians or
KLA combat casualties. Though the Finnish
experts report denies any massacre in Racak, Walker
and his superiors managed to extort a statement from
their leader, Dr. Helena Ranta (probably with a sizeable
payoff), that the victims were probably
civilians. A full report was classified  just like
the one about Markale in Sarajevo  and stored in
the vaults of Secretary Solana and General Clark. Those
who ordered the criminal bombardment of Yugoslavia made
the fabricated massacre in Racak into a pretext for their
already planned aggression.

Only in
early February 2001 did the Finnish experts report
reach the ICTY. Its conclusions were printed in Forensic
Science International, (quoted by the Berliner
Zeitung of February 16, 2001), saying, among other
things, that one cannot make a conclusion that security
forces massacred Albanian civilians in Racak, as Walker
had claimed.

If, at
the time the Indictment was put together, its authors
could possibly have believed Walkers statements,
they cannot continue to treat them as key evidence now
that the entire fabrication has been exposed. Cannot,
that is, if they care for their reputation and integrity.
Also exposed was the criminal character of U.S.
Ambassador/General William Walker.

William Walker officially began
his diplomatic career in Peru, in 1961. Between 1988 and
1992, he was the U.S. Ambassador in El Salvador. He
really belongs to the inner circle of CIA experts for
covert operations, with the likes of Oliver North, Morton
Ambramowitz and others, who use diplomatic passports only
as cover and protection. In this role, his greatest
success was in Panama, alongside the former NATO
commander Gen. Wesley Clark, and earlier in
Nicaragua and El Salvador during the 1980s, when he
fought their national liberation movements. Walker was
even investigated  though unsuccessfully 
over illegal armament and infiltration of the Contras
into Nicaragua from their bases in El Salvador. At the
time of Walkers service in El Salvador, local
death squads trained and armed in U.S. covert
operation camps (under Walkers supervision)
committed numerous massacres.

In Kosovo-Metohija, Walker became
famous for his extreme bias in favor of the
Albanian separatist movement. He always had time to give
speeches at the funerals of terrorist casualties, but he
never had a moment to give his condolences to the
families of murderer police officers, or abducted and
murdered Kosovo Serbs, even when massacres of Serbs were
found and clearly established (such as the crematorium in
Klecka and the massacre site in Donji Ratis), including
the murder of four youths at the café Panda
in Pec.

If the ICTY really wanted to
prosecute those responsible for crimes against
humanity and violations of laws and customs of war
it should first have indicted William Walker. Yugoslavias
political leadership should answer to Yugoslav courts as
to why such an obscure and unscrupulous character was
allowed to become head of the OSCE Verification Mission
in Kosovo-Metohija, especially following the extremely
negative experiences that the leaders of Republika Srpska
Krajina had with Walker in Eastern Slavonia.

Paragraph
29 of the Indictment says: In a further
response to the continuing conflict in Kosovo, an
international peace conference was organised in
Rambouillet, France beginning on 7 February 1999. Nikola
SAINOVIC, the Deputy Prime Minister of the FRY, was a
member of the Serbian delegation at the peace talks and
Milan MILUTINOVIC, President of Serbia, was also present
during the negotiations. The Kosovo Albanians were
represented by the KLA and a delegation of Kosovo
Albanian political and civic leaders. Despite intensive
negotiations over several weeks, the peace talks
collapsed in mid-March 1999.

COMMENT: The so-called peace
conference in Rambouillet was not a response to the
continuing conflict in Kosovo but a continuation of
the scenario to create an artificial pretext for NATOs
aggression against the FRY. If one follows elementary
logic, then the incident in Racak cannot be
taken as evidence of the continuing conflict in
Kosovo, especially since it has been established
that the victims of this incident were not
innocent civilians, but armed terrorists of the KLA

Rambouillet was preceded by a
meeting of the so-called Contact Group in London, (January
29, 1999), which had previously discussed conflicts in
the former Yugoslavia, though lacking any mandate to do
so. Acting on behalf of the so-called international
community, this soi-disant organization created
the well-known list of ten principles for resolving the
crisis in Kosovo-Metohija:

- Interim agreement: a mechanism for a final settlement
after an interim period of three years

- No unilateral change of interim status

- Territorial integrity of the FRY and neighbouring
countries

- Protection of the rights of members of all national
communities (preservation of identity, language and
education; special protection for their religious
institutions)

- Free and fair elections in Kosovo (municipal and Kosovo-wide)
under supervision of the OSCE

- Neither party shall prosecute anyone for crimes related
to the Kosovo conflict (exceptions: crimes against
humanity, war crimes, and other serious violations of
international law

- Amnesty and release of political prisoners

- International involvement and full co-operation by the
parties concerning implementation

Governance in
Kosovo

- People of Kosovo to be self-governed by democratically
accountable Kosovo institutions

- High degree of self-governance realized through own
legislative, executive and judiciary bodies (with
authority over, intern alia, taxes, financing, police,
economic development, judicial system, health care,
education and culture (subject to the rights of the
members of national communities), communications, roads
and transport, protection of the environment

- Legislative: Assembly

- Executive: President of Kosovo, Government,
Administrative bodies

- Judiciary: Kosovo court system

- Clear definition of competencies at communal level

- Members of all national communities to be fairly
represented at all levels of administration and elected
government

- Local police representative of ethnic make-up with
coordination on Kosovo level

Even though these principles were
formulated to be refused by Serbia and Yugoslavia, they
were accepted at considerable surprise to their authors.
The goal was to accept even the unfavorable points, in
order to avoid the danger to the security of the nation
posed by the oft-repeated threat of NATO aggression.

What happened was a reprise of
events from August 1995 in Republika Srpska. At that
time, the United States had offered a 12-point
peace initiative, expecting the Serbs to reject it and
prepared to use that as a pretext for NATO intervention
in favor of Moslem and Croat forces. When the Serbs did
accept the unfavorable U.S. platform, there was an
explosion at the Sarajevo Markale market (August 28, 1995),
killing 37 and injuring 45 civilians. Serbs were blamed
right away, though all foreign and local experts claimed
that the round could not have come from Serb positions. A
day later, NATO began bombing the civilian and military
targets in Republika Srpska.

By accepting the 10 Contact
Group principles, Yugoslavia offered an Agreement on
Kosovo-Metohija self-government in full accordance
with those principles. The Agreement contained all the
elementary principles of self-government in the province:
from the basics to democracy, the assembly, a council of
ministers, the judiciary, human rights, local police,
amnesty for all prisoners except those responsible for
war crimes, etc.

An embryonic core of this
agreement was based on the Milosevic-Rugova agreement
from early 1996 (the 3+3 treaty), among other
things dealing with educational issues and the
establishment of local, all-Albanian police in Djakovica.

That agreement had been
accompanied by a pledge to implement the September
1, 1996 Education Agreement, signed by three Serb (Ratomir
Vico, Goran PerCevic and Dobrosav Bjeletic) and three
Albanian representatives (Fehmi Agani, Abdulj Rama
and Rexhep Osmani), in the presence of three
representatives of Comunitŕ di SantEgidio,
whose status was not exactly clear. This agreement
specified the deadlines for activating the Pristina
University Balkans Studies Institute (March 31, 1997),
reopening three colleges at the Pristina University, with
returning Albanian students and faculty (April
30, 1998), and the use of university facilities by non-Albanian
faculty and students. Along with these measures, the
Agreement established deadlines for reopening other
Pristina University schools (May 31, June 30, September
30, 1998 etc.), along with a similar process for
reopening the elementary and secondary schools. The
3+3 Committee pledged to secure funding for
construction of new classrooms.

In other words, practice has shown
that agreement on peaceful coexistence between ethnic
communities in Kosovo-Metohija was possible. That is why
the Albanian delegation in Rambouillet showed interest in
negotiating with the Yugoslav delegation about this
document. However, the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia,
Christopher Hill, interfered and prevented further
discussions, following the recipe established when his
colleague Warren Zimmerman scuttled the 1992 Lisbon
agreement.

The Albanians had previously
refused to sign the Contact Group principles, without
even discussing them, let alone holding intense
negotiations with the Yugoslav delegation.
Therefore, the Rambouillet peace conference,
(as the Indictment baselessly calls it) did not collapse
because of some supposed uncooperative or uncompromising
position of the Yugoslav delegation. Rather, the
conference never had a chance because the
Albanians, in consultations with the U.S. government, did
not even agree to hold direct talks with the Yugoslav
delegation, let alone sign the Contact Groups 10
principles. Certainly, they could anticipate the
Americans next move. Having created a stalemate,
the U.S. Secretary of State M. Albright stepped in with a
set of entirely new, extremely unacceptable and
humiliating demands  the well-known Rambouillet
ultimatum. Representatives of Serbia Yugoslavia couldnt
possibly agree to them, because they were not authorized
to sign an act of capitulation.

This
ultimatum (officially, the Annexes to the Contact Group
principles) demanded: a President, Prime Minister and
government for Kosovo, its own Parliament, Supreme Court
and an entire judicial system; also that Kosovo would
have the authority to pass legislation without approval
or revision by Serbia or the FRY, regulating taxes,
economic, scientific, social, regional and technological
development, as well as foreign relations on the same
level as Serbia. Another humiliating, insulting and
utterly unacceptable ultimatum, akin to deploy
military forces... authorized to use necessary force in
order to secure the implementation of the agreement.
The head of CIM (Civilian Implementation Mission) would
be authorized to issue directives binding for both
sides regarding all important issues as he deems
necessary, including appointing and dismissing officials
and overriding institutions According to paragraph
8 of the Annex that deals with deployment of occupation
troops in Yugoslavia, NATO forces were supposed to have
unrestricted passage and unimpeded access
throughout the FRY including associated airspace and
territorial waters, free use of airports,
roads, rails, and ports, as well as the right to
make modifications to certain infrastructure to
suit its needs. According to this annex, NATO troops
would have full immunity from legal process, whether
civil, administrative, or criminal. This would have
encompassed murder, rape, pillaging, drug-running and
other crimes.

In a
press statement signed by Hashim Taqi [or Thaci  ed.],
the delegation of Albanian separatists unconditionally
accepted the so-called Interim Agreement for Peace and
Self-Government in Kosovo of 23 February 1999  i.e.
the Contact Group Principles with the Annexes inserted by
M. Albright. Taqis statement said:

Recognizing
with gratitude the contribution to that goal made by the
Contact Group members, the co-chairmen, the negotiators
and the hosts of the conference, international
institutions involved in the process of negotiations and
implementation, and especially the tireless efforts of
the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright...the
Kosovo delegation reiterates its agreement to the
integral text as submitted and accepted on 23 February
1999. This is a definite text, which cannot be subject to
further negotiations or changes, except purely technical
ones.... As stated on 23 February 1999, Kosovo invites
and expects quick deployment of NATO [troops], with
complete and effective implementation of their foreseen
functions, as well as others intended to implement the
Interim Agreement, strictly in accordance with the
modalities of command and control, and within the time
frame set out in the Interim Agreement. Full
implementation of this part of the Interim Agreement
represents a key condition for the entire package, and
for the agreement that Kosovo has given. Kosovo expects
to be consulted regarding NATOs precise plan of
deployment...

Such a
humiliating ultimatum made even American newspapers (Washington
Post, June 1999, Houston Chronicle on March 28
that year, and others) and many experts on international
law ask if anyone could have expected the Serbs to accept
such a thing. Would you have signed such an agreement?

So the Serbian and Yugoslav
delegation cannot be blamed for the collapse
of the Rambouillet negotiations, which never took place.
The main responsibility for all that happened in
Rambouillet, including the collapse of peace
negotiations, lies with the United States policy
represented by M. Albright.

Instead of honest negotiations
with the purpose of peacefully resolving the crisis in
Kosovo-Metohija, the U.S.  through M. Albright
 had steered the Rambouillet and Paris meetings
towards collapse from the very beginning, so it would
have a justification to start aggression against the FRY.
Such efforts are demonstrated, among other things, by the
fact that Albright placed a call to Hashim Taqi in Tirana
the day after NATOs air and missile strikes began (25
March 1999), demanding that the KLA begin a
general armed insurrection in Kosovo-Metohija.

The most pertinent assessment of U.S.
foreign policy towards the crisis in Kosovo-Metohija was
given by H. Kissinger (New World Disorder, Newsweek,
May 31, 1999), saying, among other things:

Several
fateful decisions were taken in those now seemingly far-off
days in February, when other options were still open. The
first was the demand that 30,000 NATO troops enter
Yugoslavia, a country with which NATO was not at war, and
administer a province that had emotional significance as
the origin of Serbia's independence. The second was to
use the foreseeable Serb refusal as justification for
starting the bombing.

Rambouillet
was not a negotiation  as is often claimed 
but an ultimatum. This marked an astounding departure for
an administration that had entered office proclaiming its
devotion to the U.N. Charter and multilateral procedures.

It is especially interesting
that the Indictment refers to these non-negotiations as
an international peace conference, since such
conferences had in the past only been held at the end of
major wars, between the victors and the defeated. One of
the parties in Rambouillet was the KLA,
i.e. a terrorist paramilitary of the Albanian separatist
movement. According to general principles of the
international community, there can be no negotiations
with terrorists. The United States was among the first to
build this principle into its foreign policy. Instead of
dealing with the paradox of having the terrorist KLAs
leader Hashim Taqi represented at an international
peace conference, the Indictment cites for their
presence the legitimate representatives of a sovereign
and internationally recognized state - Milan Milutinovic
and Nikola Sainovic!? Even this is inaccurate, since
neither of them headed the Yugoslav/Serb delegation.
Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Prof. Dr Ratko Markovic,
did. Other members of the delegation were Prof. Dr Vladan
Kutlesic, deputy Prime Minister of the FRY, Sokoll Cuse (Albanian
Democratic Reform Party), Faik Jashari (Kosovo Democratic
Initiative), Vojislav Zivkovic (Kosovo-Metohija Serbs and
Montenegrins), Zajnelabedin Kurjes and Guljbehar Sabaovic
(of the Turkish community); Ibro Vajt (of the Gorani[Slavic
Muslim] community), Refik Senadovic (of the Moslem/Bosniak
community), Ljuan Koka (of the Roma community), and
Cerim Abazi (of the Egyptian community).

Paragraph
30 of the Indictment says: During the peace
negotiations in France, the violence in Kosovo continued.
In late February and early March, forces of the FRY and
Serbia launched a series of offensives against dozens of
predominantly Kosovo Albanian villages and towns. The FRY
military forces were comprised of elements of the 3rd
Army, specifically the 52nd Corps, also known
as the Pristina Corps, and several brigades and regiments
under the command of the Pristina Corps. The Chief of the
General Staff of the VJ, with command responsibilities
over the 3rd Army and ultimately over the
Pristina Corps, is Colonel General Dragoljub OJDANIC. The
Supreme Commander of the VJ is Slobodan MILOSEVIC.

COMMENT: The Indictment is too
vague when it refers to the violence in Kosovo
continued during the peace negotiations. Every act
of violence is committed by someone. This was also the
case in Kosovo-Metohija, at every stage in the crisis.
Only the ICTY Indictment chooses not to identify them
whenever these perpetrators are Albanian terrorists of
the KLA, so as not to identify the KLA
as the main perpetrator of violence at the time of the so-called
peace negotiations in France. Hence the use of passive
voice (the violence continued...), so
absurdly; it is not the terrorists who perpetrated the
violence; rather, violence somehow perpetrated itself.

Another absurd claim in this
part of the Indictment is that the forces of the
FRY and Serbia launched a series of offensives against
dozens of predominantly Kosovo Albanian villages and
towns. Such phrasing suggests to the public that
terrorists and their actions are wholly nonexistent in
Kosovo-Metohija, so that the forces of the FRY and
Serbia have nothing to do but attack the peaceful
citizens of Kosovo Albanian villages and towns,
out of sheer impunity or some other irrational motivation.

- LAB: Three KLA brigades (151st,
numbering 300, with a command post (CP) in Bradas, with
special force of 80-90 terrorists; 152nd,
numbering 400, CP in Konjusevac; 153rd ,
numbering 180, CP in Zlas). CP of the ZO "Lab"
is in the village of Lapastica.

Local
militia units, numbering 60-100 terrorists, are deployed
in the villages of Godisnjak, Brabonjic, Vaganica, and
Slavkovce.

- SALJA & BAJGORA: two KLA brigades (141st,
numbering 200, CP in Smrekovica; 142nd,
numbering 250, CP in Sipolje). CP of the ZO Salja
& Bajgora, with a special force of 70-80
terrorists, is in Bajgora.

Objectives
of the ATF are to capture military, economic and civilian
targets, expand and link their zones of operation, spread
the rebellion, create conditions for controlling the
entire territory of Kosovo-Metohija and declare an
independent Kosovo.

"The
ATF are armed with automatic rifles, light and heavy
machine guns (also mounted on vehicles), anti-tank
weapons ARMBRUST, RPG, zolja, osa
[FRY-made AT missiles], AT guns and both 60- and 82-mm
mortars.

"Expect
ambushes of units and supply convoys on all roads.
Observation posts and skirmishers are deployed well in
front of main ATF strongholds. AFT strongholds are being
fortified with trenches and firing positions.

"Recruitment
stations are in the villages of Kravaserije, Ratimlje and
Pagarusa. Urban terrorist training centers are in
Nisar, Ratimlje, and Pagarusa.

"We
expect initial ATF resistance to VJ and MUP to be strong,
but to fall off with casualties and loss of positions,
eventually resulting in abandonment of strong points.

Objectives
of the 52nd, Pristina Corps, were specified in
clear military terms in the following order:

"Objectives:
in cooperation with Serbian MUP forces, surround, break
and destroy ATF in the area of Malo Kosovo, Drenica and
Malisevo. Simultaneously, secure the border towards
Albania and Macedonia, prevent infiltration of ATF from
Albania and Macedonia, secure military outposts, roads
and territory.

"Part
of our forces is to prevent the retreat of ATF from Malo
Kosovo, Bajgora and Drenica to Mt. Cicavica, and from
Malisevo to Baranski Lug and Mt. Jezero.

"Afterwards,
secure the major communication routes and establish full
control over Kosovo-Metohija territory."

Given
the estimated enemy force, deployment of his own troops
and the objectives, the PrK commander decided to:

Attack
with the bulk of the force along the lines: Krpimej-Gornja
Lastica-Majance; Komorane-Trstenik-Srbica, and Klina-Malisevo-Suva
Reka, and detach forces to secure the border, military
outposts, roads and territory.

"Goal
of the operation is to surround the ATF in the area of
Malo Kosovo, Drenica and Malisevo; together with the
Serbian MUP forces, from the surrounding positions attack
and destroy the ATF along all the axes of advance.

"Continue
with heightened alert along the borders towards Albania
and Macedonia, preventing the infiltration of ATF from
these republics. Secure military outposts, communications
and territory.

"Part
of the forces will prevent the retreat of ATF from Malo
Kosovo, Bajgora and Drenica to Mt. Cicavica, and from
Malisevo to Baranski Lug and Mt. Jezero.

"Afterwards,
secure the major communication routes and establish full
control over Kosovo-Metohija territory.

"Operation
to last between three and five days.

Sections
10.2 and 10.6 of the same Order, both relating to
security and psychological aspects of the operation,
regulate the behavior towards captured terrorists, as
well as civilians and their possessions:

"10.2.
Security:

Captured
terrorists shall be taken to the following POW camps:

"-
units operating in Malo Kosovo will establish a POW
collection point at the poultry farm in the village of
Goles;

"-
units operating in Malisevo will establish a POW
collection point at the administrative compound of TO
Metohija vino winery in Siroko near Suva Reka.

"-
the Corps will establish a POW camp at the warehouse of
DP Vocar in Gracanica.

"All
units will escort prisoners from the collection points to
the main POW camp using their own forces and
transportation.

"During
the operation, it is specifically forbidden of all VJ
troops: to enter residential areas on their own accord;
to loot the property of local civilian; to violate
international laws and customs of war; and to move the
enemy dead and their weapons before the arrival of
appropriate authorities.

10.6.
Moral/Psychological concerns, and Information:

Individual
soldiers are strictly forbidden to enter houses, and are
to watch for possible surprise explosive devices.

So, in
late February and early March there was no
series of offensives against dozens of
predominantly Kosovo Albanian villages and towns,
as the Indictment alleges, but an operation to destroy
very strong KLA forces in the above mentioned
areas. Even so, despite such heavy deployment of the
terrorists inside villages and towns, orders from the PrK
Headquarters specifically forbid individual entry into
homes and require respect for international laws and
customs of war.

The above-cited
sections of PrK HQ orders are in full agreement with the
Instruction by the VJ General Staff regarding the VJ
procedures for preparation and execution of operations in
Kosovo-Metohija, order # 100 of February 3, 1999, signed
by Col.-Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic. This Instruction,
aside from the general guidelines and conclusions,
contains four sections: 1) Preparations for conducting
combat operations, 2) Procedures for preparing to conduct
combat operations, 3) Procedures during combat operations
and 4) Procedures after combat operations.

In its general guidelines, the
Instruction sets a basic principle for all procedures
during the preparation and execution of combat
operations, to be followed to the letter. As its main
principle, the Instruction asserts that conduct of
combat operations by VJ in endangered areas... must be
thoroughly planned, organized, prepared, implemented,
controlled and analyzed, which means it excludes
improvisation and initiative that would make enable
individuals, groups or units to engage in behavior not
approved or uncontrolled by their commanders and the
Headquarters.

We shall
discuss command responsibility of Col-Gen. D.
Ojdanic in responding to the following, Paragraph 31 of
the Indictment.